


Long Game

by inkyopolis



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Homophobic Language, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sex, Slurs, Underage Smoking, Violence, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:22:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28368342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyopolis/pseuds/inkyopolis
Summary: A short vignette. Dualscar gives Cronus have a talk after Cronus finds himself suspended from school, yet again.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 15





	Long Game

Your head feels like a marching band used your skull for a drumline practice. You take another slow, pained drag on your cigarette and readjust the ice-pack on your cheek. You suppose that isn’t far off from the truth, in a way.

Mom and Dad are inside, arguing. How long has it been now? Fifteen minutes? Half-an-hour? Your entire life? Time is meaningless and forever. 

It’s the latter though, you're pretty sure.

The door slides open. ‘ _Well, here it comes_ ,’ you suppose, snuffing out your Camel. 

“ ** _Cronus_ **.”

“Yeah Pop?” you ask, not even bothering to look up. The sun hurts your head too much.

“You and I…. are going to go for a little drive.”

‘ _Little_ ,’ you think. Danger word. Sirens. Wee-wooo, wee-wooo. 

He surveys the area around you. “And you better not be throwing your butts all over my lawn again.”

“No sir,” you lie.

“Cause I don’t want this place to look like the outside of a fucking bar.”

“Putting them in the trash.” You point towards the bucket you haven’t emptied in months.

He looks at it, nods. “Get your shit.”

\---

Palm trees stretch into a long green blur as you hurtle down the road. You close your eyes, trying to stave off the nausea brought on by the rollercoaster driving and adrenaline crash combo meal. And your dad is pounding, _POUNDING,_ his fingers on the steering wheel and it is **not** helping.

“Just what I fucking need.” He’s muttering. Not _at_ you exactly, more to the universe. But it’s loud enough over the roar of the engine that you’re sure he wants you to hear. “ _God-damnit_ ,” he adds.

“I didn’t start it.” You offer, rubbing your temples.

“I don’t give a shit. You **_CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS_**!”

“Not! My! Fault!” you spit, your left-hand flicking out as if to underscore each word. God you wish you could just throw yourself from this car. Maybe if you rolled when you hit the ground, you’d finally stop in a ditch and could live out the remaining two minutes of your miserable life in peace.

“Really? Because your brother seems to have gotten through nine years of school without having gotten suspended once? And this is what, lucky number _five_!?”

You decide that silence is your best defense here.

“You do realize that I have to go out there and keep putting my ass on the line here? That there’s only so many **_GODDAMN PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN THIS ZIPCODE?_ **” 

He's screaming now. The words themselves don’t hurt, but the volume sure as hell does.

“Senior year. I mean, your senior **_FUCKING_ ** year and you can’t keep yourself from getting into a fight?!” He’s almost laughing, manic. “Just unreal.”

\---

The breeze off the sea is sharp and crisp. It stings, but it also feels kind of good on your face. You and Pops don’t wander far to find a dune. With the grace bestowed by aging knees, he makes his seat in the sand slowly. He doesn't dish out corporal punishment these days, but you take your seat in the sand out of arms reach, just in case.

He looks out at the breaking waves. “Do you have any idea how much I’m going to have to give to that school’s foundation so they don’t decide to just throw you out? I can’t. I just… I can’t keep doing this Cronus. I’m not made of money.”

“I know,” you say look down at the golden sand sliding around the soles of your shoes. 

He sounds tired now, like, maybe the yelling part is over. “I am _trying_ to keep you from fucking up your life. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Yeah…” you sigh. 

“You understand that they send people to jail for this shit? You haul off and hit someone after you turn eighteen, and you go to jail. No car for your graduation. No college. Big-boy _fuck-you-in-the-ass_ jail _._ You do get that. Right?”

“Yeah… I…” you pause. You know he would never let you go to jail in a million years. He’s got lawyers. Good ones. Crooked ones. “I know.”

“You know but you don’t _know_. You have no fucking idea kid. No **_fucking_ ** idea how much I am sticking my neck out for you.”

You sigh and look down between your knees. 

“What did they say this time?” he asks.

You think about the three guffawing slack jawed dipshits in letterman jackets grabbing you by the shoulder between class periods. “Heard you been givin’ out BJs Ampora,” the one shaped like a refrigerator had broadcasted loud enough for half the hallway to hear. “Yeah, I’d say you should get in line, but you'd have to grow a dick first,” you’d retorted. Fists went flying shortly thereafter. 

“They called me a fag,” you lie. Well… not lie exactly. One of them might have called you _something_ like that while they had you pinned down and were trying to crack your skull like an egg.

He sighs, exacerbated. “That’s such kid shit.”

You try to reconstruct what must have set all this in motion. You blow one lineman on the team, and then… someone found out? How? Did he brag about it? And then the mongoloid trio decide to take out their shitty unresolved homophobia on you rather than him? Maybe. Maaaaybe. You look down at your knuckles, still red and raw, a half inch cut running jagged across the middle one from where you landed a haymaker. You hope you broke some teeth. “Yeah. I know.”

Dad is shaking his head. “Some punk calls you names and you gotta try going one on three against the football team. Jesus I thought I raised with you just a lick of fucking sense.”

“Sorry,” you mumble, almost genuinely meaning it. Not the fight, of course. You're not sorry about that. Losing the fight.

Pops runs his hands through his greased hair. It’s getting thinner and thinner every day no matter how much stuff he dumps in it. “Long game Cronus. You have to think long game.”

“Long game,” you repeat as if this is the first time you’ve heard this sage chestnut.

“Fist-fights are short-term thinking. You want to get back at somebody? Fine, but don’t fucking haul off and hit them. You’re never going to win that. Look at you.” He gestures, palm outstretched, pitying. 

‘ _Yeah just look at me._ ’ you think. ‘ _Five foot nothing and I still had two of them on the ground with me before that third jumbo-shrimp tried to smother me._ _I mightta won that if it weren’t for him._ ’ If you’d had your brass-knuckles with you--who knows? “Yeah,” you laugh.

“Bunch of fucking cowards. Going after a good-kid like you? Three of them?” He looks at you for a second, appraising. “What do you want to bet they’re in that school on scholarship to pad out the football team?”

“They totally are,” you agree, glad Pops is getting back into your corner again.

“Let me tell you something Cronus. Little lowlife fucks like this. They don’t go anywhere in life. They don’t leave their mark on the world. They go off, piss their moment in the sun down their legs, and by the time they’re 30, they’re either hooked on painkillers or, if the world is lucky, wrap themselves around a telephone pole after passing out at the wheel.” 

You nod, watching a gull dig a sand flea out of the surf. “They are little fucks,” you agree, thinking about how you’re gonna get Mr. Frigidaire. ‘ _Gotta figure out his schedule. When he’s by himself. Bet it would be pretty hard to play ball with a broken leg,’_ you think. 

“That school oughtta to be thankful I don’t fucking sue their ass,” he spits, his petty rage starting to snuff out. “Long game. You gotta play the _long game_ Cronus.”

“Long game,” you repeat, wondering if a crowbar or a baseball bat would work better.

\---


End file.
